28 Gauge Recommendations

[Saul]

Thank you all for the wise words. The Merkel was long in the stock and I had JJ Perodeau doing some work to the sights and had him adjust the length of pull. I have a 20 gauge Browning A5 round knob that I used quite a bit on quail last year, and it did a wonderful job. There is just the draw of a good SxS and I though the 28 gauge would make a good addition since I already had a several 12s and a few 20s. I had considered the CZ some time ago, but never handled one. As far as older used guns, what is everyone’s preference? I am willing to save a year or two if needed to get what I’m after.

As others have said, Spanish is the way to go if you are looking to spend a little more. AyA and Grulla are great options in the used market. I am preferential to AyA, but you cannot go wrong with either. Arrieta is another option that can usually be had for cheaper, though on older examples the quality will not be comparable to AyA or Grulla.

 

[Tanks]

Pacific Sporting Arms in CA is selling a single trigger SxS pre-WW2 Purdey on consignment. I don't remember the price exactly, I was there when it came in, either $48K or $68K. It has been to factory a few times for regular service.

Owned by the same family and they have the provenance.

Mentioning it just in case someone is interested.

 

[rookhawk]

A friend of mine is one of the preeminent gunsmiths in the States for Dickson round action shotguns. I thought this anecdote was pretty cool. A client of his came to him having acquired 7 of the existent 28 bore round action Dicksons which he imported to the States as a single transaction from a single collector. My friend happened to know the location of the 8th 28 bore Dickson round action in existence and was able to allocate that one.

So today, 100% of all 28 bore Dickson round actions ever made are now in the same collector's hands. I had the privilege to see all of them in person. Had I known about the situation, I probably would have liquidated a portion of my retirement to control the entire supply myself. I would assume that if you own them all, you can set the market.

Extraordinary guns. Perhaps better than the other top "Bests" of Boss, Woodward, Purdey, and Holland. And I do not believe they sold for Boss money all things considered.

 

[jeanes]

I know this thread is mostly about sxs, but does anyone have any thoughts on Ruger Red Label 28 gauges?

 

[Red Leg]

A friend of mine is one of the preeminent gunsmiths in the States for Dickson round action shotguns. I thought this anecdote was pretty cool. A client of his came to him having acquired 7 of the existent 28 bore round action Dicksons which he imported to the States as a single transaction from a single collector. My friend happened to know the location of the 8th 28 bore Dickson round action in existence and was able to allocate that one.

So today, 100% of all 28 bore Dickson round actions ever made are now in the same collector's hands. I had the privilege to see all of them in person. Had I known about the situation, I probably would have liquidated a portion of my retirement to control the entire supply myself. I would assume that if you own them all, you can set the market.

Extraordinary guns. Perhaps better than the other top "Bests" of Boss, Woodward, Purdey, and Holland. And I do not believe they sold for Boss money all things considered.

Well, I suppose if you couldn't have a MacNaughton a Dickson would have to do ....................................

 

[rookhawk]

Well, I suppose if you couldn't have a MacNaughton a Dickson would have to do ....................................

Hah! Someday I aspire to be a bonafide gunsnob at this level of the game. "A Woodward? What, you couldn't afford a MacNaughton skeleton on your modest hedge fund salary?".



*For those not aware, Red Leg and I are joking which type of beluga caviar is inferior to another, perhaps down to the individual fish.

 

[rookhawk]

I know this thread is mostly about sxs, but does anyone have any thoughts on Ruger Red Label 28 gauges?

My biases will not give you the same answer as others. The ruger red label is an investment cast, "soulless" commodity gun. It has increased in value due to scarcity by the masses moreso than quality. Its not a bad gun, but you're paying a lot for something that came out of a machine.

For the same money, you can own a Spanish 28 bore side by side made largely by hand, or maybe even a used belgian 28 bore SxS made by hand in the mid-20th century. The modern replacement cost to have a Belgian 28 bore boxlock made today would be $30,000, yet you might have paid $3800. It has soul. It increases in value. It has vastly higher original quality. It's lighter. It has better wood. It isn't a through-bolted gun. It was built on a frame that was a 28 gauge frame, not a 20 gauge or 12 gauge frame.

 

[Red Leg]

Hah! Someday I aspire to be a bonafide gunsnob at this level of the game. "A Woodward? What, you couldn't afford a MacNaughton skeleton on your modest hedge fund salary?".



*For those not aware, Red Leg and I are joking which type of beluga caviar is inferior to another, perhaps down to the individual fish.

I definitely couldn't afford a 28 in either, more's the pity

This long-barreled 12 bore has accounted for probably a thousand pheasants (just during my stewardship). Built around 1900 and loaded with a 1 ounce load of No.6, it is decisive. But, alas, it isn't a 28. But it is a MacNaughton.

 

[rookhawk]

I definitely couldn't afford a 28 in either, more's the pity

This long-barreled 12 bore has accounted for probably a thousand pheasants. Built around 1900 and loaded with a 1 ounce load of No.6, it is decisive. But, alas, it isn't a 28. But it is a MacNaughton.

Lovely gun, @Red Leg

To that point, here's a gun that is my 9 year old son's. The question was, "why do you want a 28 gauge?". So many times people want a 28 gauge guns because they want 1.) Light weight, 2.) no recoil, 3.) Suitable shot payload for smaller birds.

So, why not have a high quality British 12 bore? My son's gun is a "forever" gun. It weighs less than 90% of the 28 gauges that exist and probably ALL the beretta, browning, and modern American 28 gauges.

So instead of buying my kid a browning or a beretta that is overweight, cumbersome, and loses value over time, I bought a vintage near "Best boxlock" gun. When he grows, that checkered butt gets sanded smooth and a 1" pad is installed to carry him into adulthood.

For what I paid for an EJ Churchill 12 bore boxlock ejector with two pairs of barrels, I would have bought him a fairly junkie, soon to be at a yardsale 28 bore O/U with a polyurethane finish and laser engraving of a cheesy pheasant on it.

To have this shotgun made today by EJ Churchill you'd spend $35,000 or more. It's of lasting quality and does what a 28 bore does, and what a 12 bore does. Pay special attention to this advice and @Red Leg 's example. Of all the shotguns ever made in Europe, 96% of them were 12 gauge. 2% were 10 gauge. 2% were 16 gauge. ALL the others are in that remaining 2% including 4 bore, 6 bore, 8 bore, 14 bore, 20 bore, 24 bore, 28 bore, 32 bore, .410, 9mm, and some gauges I've never heard of before. You are paying incredible premiums for scarcity/rarity whereas you may get a 50x higher quality gun in 12 gauge for a fraction of the price.

 

[Red Leg]

Lovely gun, @Red Leg

To that point, here's a gun that is my 9 year old son's. The question was, "why do you want a 28 gauge?". So many times people want a 28 gauge guns because they want 1.) Light weight, 2.) no recoil, 3.) Suitable shot payload for smaller birds.

So, why not have a high quality British 12 bore? My son's gun is a "forever" gun. It weighs less than 90% of the 28 gauges that exist and probably ALL the beretta, browning, and modern American 28 gauges.

So instead of buying my kid a browning or a beretta that is overweight, cumbersome, and loses value over time, I bought a vintage near "Best boxlock" gun. When he grows, that checkered butt gets sanded smooth and a 1" pad is installed to carry him into adulthood.

For what I paid for an EJ Churchill 12 bore boxlock ejector with two pairs of barrels, I would have bought him a fairly junkie, soon to be at a yardsale 28 bore O/U with a polyurethane finish and laser engraving of a cheesy pheasant on it.

To have this shotgun made today by EJ Churchill you'd spend $35,000 or more. It's of lasting quality and does what a 28 bore does, and what a 12 bore does. Pay special attention to this advice and @Red Leg 's example. Of all the shotguns ever made in Europe, 96% of them were 12 gauge. 2% were 10 gauge. 2% were 16 gauge. ALL the others are in that remaining 2% including 4 bore, 6 bore, 8 bore, 14 bore, 20 bore, 24 bore, 28 bore, 32 bore, .410, 9mm, and some gauges I've never heard of before. You are paying incredible premiums for scarcity/rarity whereas you may get a 50x higher quality gun in 12 gauge for a fraction of the price.

View attachment 358886

It is amazing to me how many people who actually shoot a lot have no comprehension of loads. I have a dear friend who I took sharptail hunting in Montana. It is a true 12 bore sport, but nothing 1 1/8 ounces won't handily manage. I arrived in Billings a day early and volunteered to pick up shells. He begged me to get him "high brass" loads because it would be long range shooting. I rummaged around and located him several boxes (maybe Remingtons?) with 1 1/8 ounces of number 6 in a shell with long brass. He was content, but dumbfounded how well I shot with "low brass" field loads - shooting exactly the same load he was.

Or one can show up at some plantations and be treated as day labor if you uncase even an English 12 bore with 7/8 or 1 ounce loads. Meanwhile, the club member with his Franchi OU is just fine shooting the identical or even heavier load from a 20. Can't make it up.

Your son is a very fortunate young man. That is a magnificent gun that eventually also will serve his son well.

 

[rookhawk]

It is amazing to me how many people who actually shoot a lot have no comprehension of loads. I have a dear friend who I took sharptail hunting in Montana. It is a true 12 bore sport, but nothing 1 1/8 ounces won't handily manage. I arrived in Billings a day early and volunteered to pick up shells. He begged me to get him "high brass" loads because it would be long range shooting. I rummaged around and located him several boxes (maybe Remingtons?) with 1 1/8 ounces of number 6 in a shell with long brass. He was content, but dumbfounded how well I shot with "low brass" field loads - shooting exactly the same load he was.

Or one can show up at some plantations and be treated as day labor if you uncase even an English 12 bore with 7/8 or 1 ounce loads. Meanwhile, the club member with his Franchi OU is just fine shooting the identical or even heavier load from a 20. Can't make it up.

Your son is a very fortunate young man. That is a magnificent gun that eventually also will serve his son well.

You're so spot on, @Red Leg

For the other readers, lets define some specifications so you can follow our logic. A brand new, modern 28 gauge is proofed or regulated for a max load of 15/16 ounce of lead shot typically. A vintage, high quality English SxS 12 bore is proofed and regulated for up to 1-1/8 ounce of shot. However, there are many formidable loads that exist for English 12 bores that are 3/4 ounce or 7/8 ounce loads. So you can shoot a 12 gauge that has the same mild load as the 28 gauge. But the vintage 12 gauge English gun probably weighs less than the modern 28 gauge gun too. Add to that, any time you go down a bore gauge, you gain a 6% increase in pattern quality. So in a perfect world, a pattern will be superior shooting an ounce of lead down a 12 bore barrel than an ounce of lead down a 28 bore barrel. This phenomenon was so well understood by the British for a time they made 12 gauge shotguns that weighed only 5 lbs and shot 2" mini shells just to get superior performance to a 28 gauge in an even lighter gun with less recoil. Really cool guns.

Thanks for the compliment to my son's gun. Truth be told, I spent a year+ searching for the gun and bartered a rifle I bought as a speculative investment on it. I then had it refinished, freshened up, and the stock dimensions bent to my son's specs after a gunfitter worked with my son. Total cost of this gun (not counting a lot of hard work on my front searching) was less than a new Browning Citori.

You can have champagne tastes and beer budget, it just takes some passion and determination. It's not that I can't afford to buy expensive things for my kids, its that I cannot afford to buy cheap things many times over for my kids.

 

[Travis2282]

Haha I have a stoeger double in a .410 that I love for a cheap double. That’s all I have rabbit hunted with for years! You will put a gun through hell chasing beagles through the briars!

 

[archer36]

my classic DB in a browning BSS sporter in 20 ga made in the mid 70,s. it has served for several generation of hunters with out any problems, firing untold amounts of shell over the years.

View attachment 358088 View attachment 358089 View attachment 358090

Have the same gun. Best Upland Hunting gun I ever owned.

 

[archer36]

The 28 ga. is no magical gauge. Ammo is not widely available and not as varied. I would opt for a 20 ga. anyday. If you have 3" chambers, you can get the power of a 12 ga. if needed. My personal choice would be a SxS with 26" barrels and screw in chokes. A Skeet and I/C choke selection would be deadly on Quail. I have even used it on Pheasant over Pointers with I/C and Modified chokes. Good luck with your new gun.

 

[leslie hetrick]

for the long cross over shots(40-45 yards) at sporting clays i load 1-1/8 oz# 8.5 shot at 1400 fps with long gun powder, every thing else gets 1-1/8 oz # 8.5 shot at 1150 fps with red dot powder in remington STS-GOLD NITRO,S CASES.

 

[rookhawk]

for the long cross over shots(40-45 yards) at sporting clays i load 1-1/8 oz# 8.5 shot at 1400 fps with long gun powder, every thing else gets 1-1/8 oz # 8.5 shot at 1150 fps with red dot powder in remington STS-GOLD NITRO,S CASES.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say that your strategy sits as the antithesis to "Best Gun" philosophy and European wingshooting.

What they would say to you:

1.) You want to shoot a square load. The pattern deteriorates and strings by adding increase pressure from more shot in the cup. It causes pellet malformation that causes stringing.
2.) Going from a 1 ounce to a 1-/8 ounce load is a 12.5% increase in shot weight but results in a 50% increase in felt recoil. (and wear/tear on the gun)
3) If you need such a gigantic payload, you're using the wrong gauge. Better to shoot a 1-1/4 ounce load from a ten bore rather than such a load from a 12 bore or 16 bore. Better pattern by 6%-12% by the step up in gauge.

I tend to shoot really long distances with my shotguns, much to the judgment of fellow shooters. Of the 10,000-20,000 pheasants I've shot, I've killed fewer than 10 birds with more than 1-1/8 ounce of shot. Probably no more than 50 birds with 1-1/8. The super-majority were shot with 7/8 and 1 ounce loads, including high flying birds in driven shoots. I found that pattern means everything and payload means little. Purdey, Holland, and Boss would support that assertion because they don't even prove most of their guns for magnum loads. Plus, if the gun can tolerate magnum loads then its overweight and points slowly, you won't get as many birds quickly.

Obviously this doesn't pertain to FITASC and Clays where people are shooting high gun and they are aware and ready for long birds off a menu, but it is superfluous and perhaps harmful to success on game. If I'm not mistaken, they did a study on handicap loads for trap and found that in a world class competitor's hands, a handicap magnum load accounts for an additional 1-2 clays in 600 during competitions. It's rounding error sort of numbers if you're not an Olympian, and it is potentially no more and possibly less effective on wild game. (malformation, stringing, etc.)

 

[Red Leg]

The 28 ga. is no magical gauge. Ammo is not widely available and not as varied. I would opt for a 20 ga. anyday. If you have 3" chambers, you can get the power of a 12 ga. if needed. My personal choice would be a SxS with 26" barrels and screw in chokes. A Skeet and I/C choke selection would be deadly on Quail. I have even used it on Pheasant over Pointers with I/C and Modified chokes. Good luck with your new gun.

Everyone has their preferences - why it is good to handle and shoot a lot of different guns. For me, 28” is the shortest that I can effectively use, even on grouse or woodcock in cover. But that is a personal thing. As @rookhawk demonstrates above, Churchill made effective use, both in the field and commercially, with the XXV with 25” barrels.

On anything but wildfowl and perhaps big far flushers like sharp tail, 7/8 to 1 ounces from a 20 - 12 bore is extremely lethal, and the best patterns will be from the 12.

The other exception is the pigeon ring. There 1 1/4 ounces of chilled shot from 32” full choke guns reign supreme. But it is a highly specialized discipline, where a pigeon’s fall - just inside or just outside the ring - can spell the difference in a multi-thousand dollar purse.

 

[rookhawk]

Everyone has their preferences. Why it is good to handle and shoot a lot of different guns. For me, 28” is the shortest that I can effectively use even on grouse or woodcock in cover. But that is a personal thing. As @rookhawk demonstrates above Churchill made effective use both in the field and commercially with the XXV with 25” barrels.

On anything but wildfowl and perhaps big far flushers like sharp tail, 7/8 to 1 ounces from a 20 - 12 bore is extremely lethal, and the best patterns will be from the 12.

Indeed. Three reasons to use a 25" barreled side by side could be considered:

1.) If you shoot using the Churchill / Instinctive method, it can point faster. (most don't use this method of wingshooting)

2.) If you're a pygmy sized person like my 9 year old kid, he isn't jamming the barrels into the ground every time he loads the gun.

3.) You're in the grouse woods or a quail thicket and you can't swing longer barrels through all the scrub.

For me, I'm a giant, but I do use the Churchill method of shooting. So I shoot 28"-29" barrels (they operate like 25s for me).

 

[Red Leg]

I am no giant, but I agree that 28-30” works best in the field for me. However, I shoot 32’s in the ring.

That gun is perfect for your son.

 

[rookhawk]

I am no giant, but I agree that 28-30” works best in the field for me. However, I shoot 32’s in the ring.

That gun is perfect for your son.

@Red Leg have you found your drillings and combination guns with their typical 24" barrels to be a detriment? I was disappointed and actively worked to own only 27" drillings to have them behave more like shotguns i'm accustomed to using.